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In my thirteen years tuning pianos for the Seattle Symphony-not one single pianist requested anything other than a solid, stable tuned, voiced, and regulated piano. In my sixteen years as head technician at the Seattle Steinway dealership- not one pianist requested anything other than the scenario my first sentence described.Certainly there are pianist's interested by alternative tunings-but one CAN safely assume that unless they make the effort to establish the tuning specifications in advance of the event-solid, inharmonicity corrected equal temperament, with perfect as possible unisons is what they expect.

In a seemingly infinite universe-infinite human creativity is-seemingly possible.According to NASA, 93% of the earth like planets possible in the known universe have yet to be formed. Contact: Ed@LightHammerpiano.com

That seems to be the American viewpoint of "take what I give you and be happy." Some top level pianists might accept that attitude, while others do not. On the whole, I find more flexibility when working with European tuners.

Ever tune for Peter Serkin or his father?

To make an assumption about what concert pianists would prefer is very different than accepting what they are given.

That seems to be the American viewpoint of "take what I give you and be happy." Some top level pianists might accept that attitude, while others do not. On the whole, I find more flexibility when working with European tuners.

Ever tune for Peter Serkin or his father?

To make an assumption about what concert pianists would prefer is very different than accepting what they are given.

Excellent point. Could it be that, when, on tour, many pianists are willing to accept whatever is given them, especially for concerto work, just to get it over with. That is not to say the don't give their all to the music, just that the tuning is not foremost on their mind.

I think that it is far more likely that they do not know the difference. I never hear of a pianist complaining that the temperament that another instrument that they are playing with is different, and yet it always is. People judge tuning by intervals, not by temperament. Equal temperament is a good compromise.

Semipro Tech

#2085722 - 05/20/1310:55 AMRe: So in tune that it sounds terrible
[Re: BDB]

I think that it is far more likely that they do not know the difference. I never hear of a pianist complaining that the temperament that another instrument that they are playing with is different, and yet it always is. People judge tuning by intervals, not by temperament. Equal temperament is a good compromise.

All temperaments are a compromise. Intervals are what define a temperament, and the quality of the tuning is then assessed from that given compromise.

A highly skilled pianist can certainly hear the difference between an ET or a UT. We may not be able to name the temperament, but we sure can hear it!

In general, I agree with BDB and Marty. I play on many different UTs and quasi-ETs, but I couldn't name them if I heard them, or even if on comparison, if one was UT and the other ET when playing the same piece of music. Testing the piano for intervals, of course, is an easy way to tell what is what.

In my thirteen years tuning pianos for the Seattle Symphony-not one single pianist requested anything other than a solid, stable tuned, voiced, and regulated piano. In my sixteen years as head technician at the Seattle Steinway dealership- not one pianist requested anything other than the scenario my first sentence described.Certainly there are pianist's interested by alternative tunings-but one CAN safely assume that unless they make the effort to establish the tuning specifications in advance of the event-solid, inharmonicity corrected equal temperament, with perfect as possible unisons is what they expect.

True of the concert pianists who have performed here as well - at least those whom I have knowledge of. In fact, very few made any requests at all, and if so it usually had to do with voicing to their particular taste. Only twice was I asked for a different pitch: once, at A441 and the other, to pull down to A435. The A441 request was for either a Steinway D or Baldwin SD10, which I accommodated. The A435 request was for an old Yamaha C, for a chamber program, which I refused to do.

In general, I agree with BDB and Marty. I play on many different UTs and quasi-ETs, but I couldn't name them if I heard them, or even if on comparison, if one was UT and the other ET when playing the same piece of music. Testing the piano for intervals, of course, is an easy way to tell what is what.

There are some that are fairly close. But there are some I can pretty much guarantee you could pick out after you've played on an instrument tuned that way.... even with some of the milder UTs.

For instance, tune a piano in the Hummel(sp?) "the Viennese" and try to play some darkest, most brooding Romantic music you know on it. Once you have had that experience, I guarantee you will be able to tell if a temperament is "the Viennese" or a close relative in the future.(Edit: I'm sorry it took so long for me to do this edit. I had work to go to. I do not promise that playing this type of music on a piano tuned in the Viennese temperament will be a positive experience, only that it will be a memorable experience.)

Tune a piano in Moscow's EBPT of 1895 and then play it. In the future, though you may not know for certain that is is specifically the EBPT just by playing, you will at least be able to pick out that the temperament belongs to the Pythagorean family of temperaments.

Wells can be more challenging because there are so many and they can vary so much in strength.

That seems to be the American viewpoint of "take what I give you and be happy." Some top level pianists might accept that attitude, while others do not. On the whole, I find more flexibility when working with European tuners.

Ever tune for Peter Serkin or his father?

To make an assumption about what concert pianists would prefer is very different than accepting what they are given.

C'mon Marty, where in the world have you been able to breeze into any concert of recital hall and demand the piano be retuned to a different temperament?

While i don't name drop, I have tuned for many of the same pianists whose name gets dropped on the cause of UT's. They never ask for unusual temperaments. Most of the time I'm tuning at another venue by the time they come to rehearse. We rarely meet them unless they're so damn nervous they run their practice time into our tuning slot.

I have read newspaper articles about them in reference to some temperament or other. There always seems to be some pushy tuner mentioned in the same article. Have you noticed? .....Wanna buy a bridge?.

If you really wanted an unusual temperament for a concert you would have to go through the hall management. They have experience of all sorts of loony requests (it is loony to them). Often it is pitch change that is requested, never temperament and I get asked about the feasibility sometimes if they seem willing to pay for the extra tunings. They always forget the cost of retunings back to normal afterwards.

Don't forget the audience and other musicians involved.

Compared to the thousands, if not millions attending concerts all over the world tonight and every night of the year and the thousands of musicians involved. On this forum there are approx. 6 advocates of UT.

Though I did introduce a question re UTs and sterile sound into this thread and , I probably should not have done so. I was simply curious as to others' experience in this matter. The thread really is wandering off topic.

Back to the topic...

I think it would not be the mass-produced spinet or console is not the problem.

This becomes an issue on first tier large grand pianos. The window of acceptable unison tuning is much larger than on a lesser instrument with a lot of false beats and other issues. When unison on a great piano begins to drift even slightly, there is a (comparitively) large window of acceptability before the unison starts to sound sour.

With budget pianos, the unison must be absolutely dead on. As soon as the unison drifts even slightly, the unison becomes intolerable. With the first-tier piano, the acceptable unison is a zone; with a budget piano, the acceptable unison is similar to a mathematical point.

I think there is some truth in the width of unison color that is or is not acceptable based on the quality of the instrument. In a different thread there was discussion on how false beating colors the unison, the immediate work-arounds as well as the more involved repair attempts. I think it goes without saying that a lower quality instrument will have more problems in that regard than others. An SKG 600 I deal with, I regularly brush up as the upper third of the piano becomes unbearable with the false beating added to minor out of tune unisons that would be much more tolerable on a well built and prepped instrument... One can only handle so many beats from a single note.

Compared to the thousands, if not millions attending concerts all over the world tonight and every night of the year and the thousands of musicians involved. On this forum there are approx. 6 advocates of UT.

Compared to the thousands, if not millions attending concerts all over the world tonight and every night of the year and the thousands of musicians involved. On this forum there are approx. 6 advocates of UT.

Welcome to the real world.

ET is the McDonalds of music.

Kees

While I refuse to eat at McDonalds, I am not sure if your statement is a positive or negative one. Could we not also say that Freedom is the McDonalds of Humanity?

Much, if not most tonal, and some not so tonal music, sounds better in just intonation. Since just intonation is not presently available on an acoustic piano ( it IS available on DPs if you have purchased the software), there has to be a compromise, so which is it going to be, such that the unisions will sound good when tuned cleanly?

In a seemingly infinite universe-infinite human creativity is-seemingly possible.According to NASA, 93% of the earth like planets possible in the known universe have yet to be formed. Contact: Ed@LightHammerpiano.com

The very idea that some people seemed to like a tuning in ET that had "ripened" better than a freshly tuned piano is what made me think that a piano perfectly tuned in ET was not the best sound. Believe me, it has happened. A lady complained that her tuning did not sound right on her Yamaha grand. When I went to check it, I could find no fault in the tuning, so I did nothing.

She called another local technician who has since become the most successful dealer in the area and hosts all of his salon concerts in non-equal temperaments and has done so for some 25 years. No artist ever asked him for ET.

When that technician checked my tuning, he said it was the most perfect ET he had ever heard and that the unisons were solid. So, he converted it to a Historical Temperament of some kind. The customer was delighted. When I saw her at one of those non-equal temperament events, she glared at me.

I suppose it depends on the area you are in but around here, UNLESS you can tune a piano in some cycle of 5ths based Well Temperament or Meantone, you are not the one they want. Time and again, people tell me that I have been retained as the technician because when I finish tuning the piano, it just sounds so much more harmonious and musical than when other people have done it and it seems to stay in tune so much longer too.

It seems to me that the ET only people are stuck with one dogmatic principle and are unwilling to learn anything else and therefore force the only way they know how to tune on each and every customer. The artists they serve don't ask for something specific because they have never been given the opportunity to experience anything but the one and only way the technicians who serve them know how to do.

Also, the track record of tunings which I encounter that have previously been tuned by ear is 9 out of 10 in Reverse Well rather than ET. Those Reverse Well tuning technicians all say the same thing as any of the ET only people do. They would swear on a stack of Bibles, a couple of Korans and a Torah to boot that what they do is ET but clearly, they don't even know what ET actually is. To them, ET is what THEY do.

It is no wonder to me why people don't like a piano tuned in Reverse Well very much until it ripens a bit.

Of course Bill it is obvious that you would have a bias for yourself, and take the opportunity to promote yourself, as per usual. All that you have just said is just that, your opinion and one sided story.

Yes, you may write well, yes you have something to offer but there is a limit that once crossed over results in rantings and ravings.

Interestingly, we never hear about tuners who do not execute a WT accurately. Do they not exist?

If ET is called reverse well when it is not accurately executed, and is "so detestable", then what is an UT called when not accurately executed and what is it's resultant sound and affect on the discerning ear?

What I find lacking in the UT's I hear, is the wonderful difference between major and minor. ET creates more tension by making the m3's a small as flat as possible and the M3's as sharp as possible. I don't think music such as Gershwin, Scriabin, MacDowel, Ravel, etc works as well without that effect.

It is well to remember that temperament is lowest on the priority list of pianist's regarding judgement of the state of a tuning.

In a seemingly infinite universe-infinite human creativity is-seemingly possible.According to NASA, 93% of the earth like planets possible in the known universe have yet to be formed. Contact: Ed@LightHammerpiano.com

I have heard unequal temperaments that sound dull, possibly because the major thirds are too flat for my ears. Other times, you get intervals which are so far off they make me cringe. I can never tell whether they are a characteristic of the temperament, or just bad tuning.

If I point these things out, the advocates of unequal temperaments claim that I have not given the temperament a fair chance. So I just tune the discussions of unequal temperaments out. MacDonald's is not my favorite eatery, but I would rather eat there than eat out of the dumpster of discarded temperaments.

Semipro Tech

#2086232 - 05/21/1311:32 AMRe: So in tune that it sounds terrible
[Re: BDB]

I have heard unequal temperaments that sound dull, possibly because the major thirds are too flat for my ears. Other times, you get intervals which are so far off they make me cringe. I can never tell whether they are a characteristic of the temperament, or just bad tuning.

If I point these things out, the advocates of unequal temperaments claim that I have not given the temperament a fair chance. So I just tune the discussions of unequal temperaments out. MacDonald's is not my favorite eatery, but I would rather eat there than eat out of the dumpster of discarded temperaments.

Once I got used to the pure thirds and low sevenths, which for me, are the hallmarks of most interesting UTs, I have come to prefer UTs on organs, harpsichords and clavichords. To me, it makes the 'tierce de picardie' much more of a release of tension than in ET, and , when straying far from the original key, wanting to get back to the calmness. However, I have never, other than my own poor attempt at EBVT III on my BB, played a piano tuned in anything other than what the tuner thought was ET, so, given the iH issues on a piano, which, in my ignorance, I think is important to the overall temperament, I can't form an opinion one way or the other.

In almost 30 years of tuning I have only heard compliments on the clarity and ET in-tuneness of my tunings. I have never heard a complaint. The odd time I have to explain to people who neglect their pianos for years that the newfound quietness is a byproduct of a good tuning compared to the busy sound they have got used to in their out of tune piano.

As Ed mentioned, the original precision of a tuning is perishable with time and begins the moment we step out the door. Almost every time I buy fruit fully ripe, some of it ends up spoiling before its eaten. Tuning a really clean tuning gives the customer the best bang for their buck as far as how long the piano can be used before its decided it needs another one.

I find the analogy of ET to MacDonalds quite misleading. I've eaten at some "super fine" restaurants where the main course is 4 square inches of something appropriate for an split hooved ungulate and an artists rendition of drizzled sauce is sqiggled over the plate....only to leave with a half empty tummy and the desire to sink my teeth into a juicy burger or rack of ribs washed down with some micro brewed red lager. ET has been mentioned by numerous top tier tuners (who also tune UT's) as the most difficult temperament to tune to perfection. The handful of techs who tune UT's out of the tens of thousands of tuners worldwide who don't, need to stop pretending its an accomplishment on a higher level, and realize its a shortcut to a lower one.

In all of this discussion I try to remember that, "iron sharpeneth iron," but sometimes it can get maddening.

One of the most successful piano technicians - with a proven track record - used the most basic of temperaments. (Most today would define it as an amateur's method. See J Cree Fischer.) Armed with his simple temperament, for some 40 years he prepped performance pianos both hither and yon for scores of legendary concert pianists. The tech is long gone, as are most of the pianists he worked for. But his example isn't forgotten: Don't fix what isn't broken.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that times do change. If present-day professional pianists are asking us for something different, then by all means bring it to the table for discussion - e.g. how to either make it work or work better. Otherwise, some of what we do here is of such that made Mars Hill famous. And if that's what we want to do - well, it's a free country.

What of the amateurs - those who constitute the lion's share of our customer base? Instead of the tried and true, they may be asking for something different too. The decision as to whether or not to accommodate them is proprietary. Do we open our temperament book and ask: "Which one would you like this time, our #3 or #19?" We do so at our own peril. Best to have an exit strategy. If we do not, then I suppose we can talk about that too.

Bob the pre contrived exit strategy quite often can become the cause of a less than satisfying ET tuning. After all, if it doesn't measure up to the far stricter, quantative and refined checks and standards of ET, one can call it a UT, and still cash the cheque. That is, if one does not have a conscience.

I tune EBVT for only two customers who had enquired about it. I didn't really care about my own feelings towards it. I now carry 2 printed out sheets of the most complete aural tuning instructions and list of checks for both ET and for EBVT. One is a page and a half long, the other is 1/3 of a page; anyone care to guess which is which? LOL Show these to an enquiring customer and then tell them you have to charge the same for either tuning....people have enough sense to figure out where they get their moneys worth when its sitting right in front of them.

I think something else is going on here. When you tune a certain piano as perfectly as is possible it sounds "clinical". I assume you use clinical as I would "sterile" to describe a piano that sounds boring.

Just might not it have been the manufacturer/designers intent that the piano sound sterile when it is in tune?

I often find Grotrian, Petrof, Estonia, one Fazioli, and some others to have a less interesting sound than other grands. A perfect tuning exposes the true sound of a piano.

Last edited by Ed McMorrow, RPT; 05/21/1309:20 PM.

In a seemingly infinite universe-infinite human creativity is-seemingly possible.According to NASA, 93% of the earth like planets possible in the known universe have yet to be formed. Contact: Ed@LightHammerpiano.com